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A shadow dropped long upon the shanty floor. In the doorway stood Teola Graves, tall, thin, and distressingly pale. Tessibel had not seen her since the day she had carried the babe to the hill-house. That was three whole weeks ago. Tess moved awkwardly from the chair, motioned for Ezra Longman to get up, and stuttered out an invitation for the girl to be seated.
"Sweetheart, is there anything in all the world that I can say to you to make you love me more precious, precious little darling!" "Only say that you do love me, Dan," breathed Teola, "and and " "Don't turn your eyes away from me, sweetheart love you, Teola? I'll study so hard, dearest, and when I finish college we'll get married, and go away and have a home of our own.
After wrapping the infant closely in a warm cloth, Tess took it in her arms, and laid herself down beside Teola; and the trio slept as all youth sleeps, until the morning sun had been shining long in the window. "Be ye better now?" asked Tess, trying to stand Teola on her feet. "I am dreadfully ill yet," was the whispered answer. "But I want to see my baby.... And what shall I do with him?
Her glance sought his for a twinkling, as if she thought he had lost his mind. She shook her head. "Nope." She was not disloyal to Teola in saying this. "I have offered you all the help a man can give to another human being." Here his voice broke a little. "All I have offered to do for you, you have refused.
"Tess, I've nearly died all through the night.... Oh, can you forgive me?" "I ain't no business to be a-forgivin' ye. It be the brat what ye air to asks forgiveness of." Teola sprang to her feet. "Tess!" she cried sharply. Never had the girl appeared in this light.
"It ain't no other squatter's brat, air it?" "No, no, Frederick," replied Teola, white and wan; "she has told you the truth it isn't another squatter's child." Hope died in the boy and outraged feeling leaped into its place. He held Tessibel's eyes with his relentlessly.
Then she allowed her fingers to come in contact with Teola's shoulder, pressing into the girl's mind some message. "Ye be a-goin' to see the sick woman to-day, ain't ye?" Tess could scarcely utter the words. Would Teola understand what she wanted to impress upon her? Her fingers sought the shoulder again. "Yes," came the low answer. "Might I ask ye to take her a bit of fish, what I promised her?
Tess was a human being who sympathized with her, and sympathy was as necessary to Teola's soul at that moment as breath was to her body. In the spasmodic whitening of the other girl's face Tess realized a desperate heart agony. "Ye air sick," she said at last, an enlightened expression widening her lids. "A woman's kind of sick, ain't it? Eh?" "Yes," answered Teola, flushing deeply; "yes."
The answer was but a slight negative shake of the proudly-set head, followed by an embarrassment that Teola covered by leaning over her brother, and raising him from the floor. Frederick allowed his sister to lead him by the wooden box, past Tessibel to the door. His eyes traveled back to the open Bible upon the stool, where but a moment since his own dark head had rested.
Teola kissed her babe over and over, drawing a small shawl about her shoulders, and picked a path out through the fish-bones on the floor. When Frederick returned to the boat, she was listlessly throwing small stones into the water. Tessibel watched Minister Graves' yacht steam by the Hoghole, across the head of the lake and into the inlet.